Many surgical procedures require a knot to be tied. For example, to reattach torn tissue, a surgeon will typically form a slip knot around the detached tissue to hold the tissue in place, rather than stitch the torn tissue to the surrounding area. Formation of the slip knot requires the surgeon to manually tie a knot on the ligatures, which are long, relatively straight strands of suture material, after the ligature is threaded through the tissues to be sutured together. This procedure is often tedious and time-consuming. There is also a tendency for the slip knot to deform or collapse as the surgeon manually forces the knot down into its proper position. In addition, tying the knot in this manner is often difficult during endoscopic surgeries such as arthroscopies, where the visual field for the surgeon is severely limited by the narrow surgical area. Because of these setbacks, there exists a need for an improved method of tying a slip knot, and for surgical tools that will facilitate such a goal.